we’re off on tour

Finances Ontario

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:27:58 -0400

Thought you might find our final tally useful. As you can see, we didn’t make much money so the OAC grant was completely and utterly necessary to financial viability.

FINAL REPORT – A BOOK OF SPELLS TOUR

FINANCIAL STATEMENT

Income

Box office 2738.99
OAC 9000*

Total 11338.99

Expenses

Administration 3083.32
Venue rental 1473.30
Promotion 2603.43
Technical 100
Set 50.27
Insurance 810
Travel 1150.31
Permissions 615.60
Performer fees 1852.76

Total 11338.99

Insurance

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 08:05:21 -0400

Black and white photo for a change of pace! I see it’s over a month since my last entry (gaps in reporting being a blogger’s no-no but so it goes!) Now we’ve done our last Canadian show -- a grand evening at the Fourth Stage in Ottawa -- and we are off to Wales. Venues seem to be slightly in flux but we’re excited. Hey, we’re up for it. We’ll take whatever comes.

I realize insurance is something I never got to -- something which came at us at the last moment and which we suddenly found ourselves having to factor in. Here’s what happened. We were all set up, signing our last theatre contract when we discovered that, in said contract, there was an irrevocable requirement for liability insurance for $2,000,000 both in case we might cause damage (or damage might be caused during or performance) and in case some listener might be injured by some unexpected eventuality.

Panic ensued. We checked with other venues, found that some had coverage, others would hold us liable but didn’t insist that we prove we could pay. Insurance, as you can guess, is an expensive business. We tried going to our respective agents and found they couldn’t do much for us in any way that came close to what we could afford.

Once again STAF came to the rescue, recommending Act One Insurance -- a group which specializes in theatre coverage and is therefore somewhat more understanding of what’s involved. They can be reached at www.act-one.ca.

We could in fact have got coverage just for the one night for about $200 but eventually signed up for a year at around $800. Our jury is out on whether going for the whole year was smart. A couple of things you need to recognize about this are: a) there’s no international coverage; b) such coverage doesn’t include school work, for which there is a per student cost that puts the whole deal off the financial map.

Anyway....if you’re going on a tour and renting facilities insurance may be something you have to consider.

A Complex Issue

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:55:48 -0400

In talking about publicity with friends recently, I realize there’s an important issue I haven’t yet raised. This has to do with the fact that we are a lesbian couple so what we’re exploring and evoking is a lesbian relationship.  
The difficulty comes when we try to work out how much this aspect should be featured in promotion. We certainly don’t want it hidden but we’re concerned that if we make too big a deal of it those who aren’t gay or lesbian will feel our work is not for them.

And yet, truly, the story we’re telling is for all. We know that because of what people have said to us. We’ve had numerous comments about how we’ve taken something that might have related to a particular segment of the population and shown its universality.

So....it’s a quandary. We, of course, want to reach a gay and lesbian audience; we want to add our work to the movement that knows the stories of same-sex couples need to be told. We also want to show the “ordinariness” of it all. We want to establish that same-sex lives come in a huge range of possibilities: some people are “out there” in a very obvious fashion because that’s what they want and who they are; others just aren’t that flamboyant (for exactly the same reasons).

We know we need to do better in terms of reaching gay and lesbian networks. We’ll work on that harder from now on. Apart from that, the jury’s still out, however. We have questions but not answers.

We’d love to hear other opinions on this.

Is This Really Storytelling?

Sat, 7 Mar 2009 11:31:28 -0500

As I was lying in bed last night, drifting into sleep, it suddenly occurred to me some of you might be asking this very question -- with all the talk of sound and lights. So, here’s the answer. That answer is, “Yes.”

We have two stools and two mikes. We sit on the stools throughout the performance. There are no theatrics. We speak always directly to our listeners. We keep the lights in the house up so we can see people. We maintain our role as storytellers throughout. We do have a script but it’s fluid and living, changing a little every time. The story really is happening in “the space between.”

Audiences seem to understand all this. I’m going to quote from the London Free Press blog review included earlier to serve as demonstration.

“‘Stories of Magic Realism by Sara Maitland,’” it says on the poster.
The realism is, for me, in the good bones of the old stories retold by somebody who loves them and the magic is in the beauty of the human voice, when it’s telling a story it loves about somebody it loves.”

What We’ve Learned

Fri, 6 Mar 2009 12:01:15 -0500

About the Show
1. It’s good -- solid and strong. It touches people. It won’t be to everyone’s liking but that doesn’t matter. It is still a thing of power. This may seem a funny place to start but it’s crucial. We want to be giving our listeners the best that we can give; knowing we may be achieving this is what tells us we should keep going. It also helps in terms of building on-going support.
2. Small touches make a big difference. We’ve been carrying around a bundle of sticks brought from Ikea, a sap bucket to stand them in and some red cloth. We arrange these things to fit whatever stage we’re working on. They’re there to give audiences something immediate to walk into, they help create an ambience that means we’re not starting out cold.
3. People truly do like to be spoken to directly -- to be welcomed at the beginning, to be thanked and encouraged to engage in conversation at the end. This is something that is particular to storytelling -- a convention we should hang onto, because it works.

About Publicity and Promotion
1. You have to give people a sense that they know what they’re coming to. Our publicity material didn’t work nearly as well as it should have in this respect. We needed to be clearer in our written blurbs; we also needed to abandon the animé type images that had worked so well in the initial promotion. They just weren’t evocative enough of what we were up to. One of the most common comments we received was, “If I’d known what this was really about, I’d have brought more friends.”
2. Get your face out there! We’d have done better to work through one of the press photos (featured in earlier blogs). This, because it would have made vivid the fact that what we were telling was personal and particular to us. It would have contributed more obviously to letting people know what they needed to in terms of whether this might be a show for them. It would also have made us a more recognizable entity for future times. People do not go to see “a performer;” they go to see Leonard Cohen!
3. Giving comps makes a huge difference. It’s how we got such a good number from the Ontario Arts Council; it’s how we got James Reaney who wrote such a grand piece for us for the London Free Press.
4. One night stands are hard in terms of audience building. There’s no space for reviews to work (and mostly reviewers won’t cover less than three nights); there’s no space for a groundswell via word of mouth. The next time we go out, we will go to fewer places and stay longer or (if it’s nearby) try one night a week for several weeks.

About the Place of Storytelling
1. I’m sorry to say this folks but storytelling has not been doing a good job of getting out there. One of the reasons we had small houses was that so often, in the places we went, so few people knew anything about storytelling at all. We have to be putting ourselves forward more and we have to be doing it in professional venues if we want to gain increasing respect and see our work to grow.
2. Small theatres truly are a good place to work in. Making storytelling happen where there are both proper sound and lighting has huge advantages. You aren’t cut off from your audiences, rather you can reach them better.
3. Small theatres are not in fact all that expensive to rent. The maximum we paid for one night was $500. Seating there was for 100. At $20 a ticket, even though we weren’t full, we covered rental costs.
4. We all know this one -- storytelling has an enormous amount to give!

First Round Coming to an End

Fri, 6 Mar 2009 11:28:02 -0500

There we are, on the marquee -- A Book of Spells -- in lights at the theatre in Port Hope!

We’re back now with only more more to show as part of the tour (Perth, on Saturday) and then one show in April as part of the Ottawa Storytellers series at the Fourth Stage of the NAC.

Audiences continued small -- except for the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto where the storytelling community came out to gladden our hearts and support us in force. Response continued extremely positive. There was a wondrous night in Kingston where, when we’d finished and storyteller Charly Chiarelli had asked if we’d take questions, the listeners stayed around to talk about how touched they’d been for half an hour. Mostly these were lesbians but wherever we’ve been people have wanted us to know how clearly this is a show for everyone -- a story about relationships, a love story for all the world.

We got good coverage in the newspaper in Kingston -- extremely good -- and something in papers almost everywhere we went. That was another heartening aspect -- as was the support of theatre devotees and volunteers in Hillsburgh and Port Hope. Peterborough was a particular treat because my son and his partner live there. We were nervous because so much of the material is so personal but this was not a problem and again it was possible to see how universal the piece is. We give thanks to Kathleen Bailey and Mariella Bertelli who organized an informal evening for folks who couldn’t make it to the Gladstone -- also to those who joined us at that time.

Driving from place to place was spent fine tuning the script. Turns out there’s always something we believe we can improve on. Also on dreaming and scheming. We feel we’ve learned so much and want to make use of it. We’d like to run with the project as far as we can.

We were further encouraged in this by the fact that a number of officers from the Ontario Arts Council came to the Gladstone. All took trouble to say how impressed they’d been. The following day, we went to meet with John Degen, the new Literature Officer, to consider next steps both for ourselves and for others wanting to pursue a similar course. Not only did John give us every indication we should go for it, we were stopped in the hallway by John Brotman, the current OAC Director who wanted to congratulate us and tell us what good things he’d heard.

Are we blowing our own trumpets? Perhaps a little but we’re coming to believe storytellers need to be doing somewhat more of that and we do want to encourage others to give this a try. On then to the next entry and WHAT WE LEARNED.

Article: Kitchener Record

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:56:35 -0500

Spellbinders

11

January 28, 2009
COLIN HUNTER
RECORD STAFF
KITCHENER
Have you ever wondered what happened to the old witch in the woods after Hansel and Gretel escaped uneaten?
Care to find out?
A pair of storytellers, Jan Andrews and Jennifer Cayley, would like to escort you back to the gingerbread house in the forest.
They would like to take you a lot of places, actually, in their two-woman show, A Book of Spells.
They'd like to carry you on a journey -- purely through the power of the spoken word -- to magical places where even the Brothers Grimm didn't dare venture.
And they'd like to welcome you into their real-life relationship -- the union of two self-described "little old ladies" who have chosen to spend their lives together.
"This is a pretty big step for ourselves, and for the storytelling community in Canada," Andrews says of the upcoming tour of A Book of Spells, which will stop at the King Street Theatre Centre on Feb. 7.
The show will be among the last at the soon-to-close downtown theatre, which Andrews believes will make the performance even more poignant.
"Times are pretty intense right now," she says of the economic climate that partly led to the venue's impending demise.
"But as an artist in tough times, you have to do more. People need art more."
As practitioners of one of the world's oldest art forms, storytelling, Andrews and Cayley feel they can help audiences re-connect with the past.
"Storytelling is an ancient art, but it kind of fell off the map," Andrews says.
"It has been in a revival, though. The wonderful thing about storytelling is that it's a very direct connection between ourselves and our listeners."
That connection will be built during their 90-minute show through a series of edgy, peculiar and sometimes disturbing series of poems and monologues. This is not storytime for kids, but rather an imaginative journey for open-minded grown-ups.
The re-imagined tale of the witch in the gingerbread house is borrowed from a collection of short stories by author Sara Maitland. The poetry in the show is taken from a collection called Gardens of Eden by Michelene Wandor.
And the rest of the fables in A Book of Spells are inspired by the real lives of Andrews and Cayley, who often think of themselves as a pair of witches living in the woods (their house is beside a river, about an hour outside Ottawa).
"We think we each have a broomstick somewhere but can't actually find it," Andrews says.
"We weave these stories together with things that relate to our own lives. (The show) is a vivid demonstration of what literature is for -- to show us to ourselves."
chunter@therecord.com

A BOOK OF SPELLS
The King Street Theatre Centre, Saturday, Feb. 7, 8 p.m.
Tickets: $15; 519-571-0928, www.kstc.ca; spells.theatreadmin.com

Review: London Free Press

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:34:35 -0500

James's Gotta Brand New Blog
By James Reaney

The Free Press's resident A&E columnist on the London arts scene and his place in it

Posted: 2009-02-09 08:52:37

Last updated: 2009-02-09 09:51:45

Ottawa storytellers Jan Andrews & Jennifer Cayley were telling amazing tales of their own lives & love, brought together by a passion for literature, at The Arts Project last week & said how storytelling hardly ever gets review. So I said well I can try. At least.

Early in their two-voices & several storied evening A Book of Spells, Jan Andrews & Jennifer Cayley recalled their astonishment, in early days, to think they might be lesbians. Both were married, one unhappily, one in a perfect marriage. At the beginning of their story.   Their penchant for discussings books - Doris Lessing, Timothy Findley, Jane Rule & more are mentioned - over dinners out had led to passionate discussions loud enough to still other diners' conversations . . . & eventually love & a period of what sounds like bonechilling hate & love again. Understated abandon. Intelligent love. Always the best romance tales.   That is their story & it is interwoven with the centrepiece of A Book of Spells, two stories by British writer Sara Maitland. The first, The Angelmaker (title approx). It is told from the point of view of the witch in Hansel & Gretel. She is revealed as a powerful, solitary figure in the forest whose confectioned cottage is an abortion clinic/fertility clinic among other things. (This is my interpretation from the seats at The Arts Project). The witch encounters Gretel again & again as the little girl of the fairy tale grows into a woman in the modern world. This was told by Jan Andrews, whose voice & inflections convey beautifully arrived at sense & calm insight.   Jennifer Cayley told the second Maitland story, In Praise of Unknown Women & Our Mothers (title approx). Her voice & storytelling style coveys more wide-eyed wonder, passion turning from anger to love rather than irony on the way . . . which was appropriate to the story. It tells of a young girl who encounters two everyday life witches & learns about her own magic & flies over the other London to prove it.   (Both Maitland stories are apparently edited to suit the storytelling format).   The Arts Project is undergoing extensive renos (it still has a fine Sunfest-tied art exhibition in the main space ongoing). The result is that the place is damn cold of a night.   The two storytellers and The Arts Project folks contrived to overcome this. As the storytellers wryly observed, their own story can't really have a surprise ending. There the two of them are, decided to take their show on the road & see what crowds storytellers can pull. That's a hill still to climb, there were may be 20-25 of us @ TAP on Saturday.   Magically & realistically, their own reconciliation seems to have begun over an empty bookcase . . . & they now have their own non-confectioned dwelling in the forests of Easter Ontario to keep it real.   So that's my attempt at a review. I suggested coming back for The London Fringe - which didn't seem to light a bonfire or switch on a bulb - & they were off to Kitchener, where they had hoped to be part of other gay & lesbian events & that didn't seem to be happening. But it might down the road. The storytellers deserve another hearing on a warmer night with a bigger crowd if they touring this way again.   "Stories of Magic Realism by Sara Maitland" it says on the poster.   The realism is, for me, in the good bones of the old stories retold by somebody who loves them & the magic is in the beauty of the human voice, when it's telling a story it loves about somebody it loves.
http://www.lfpress.com/perl-bin/publish.cgi?x=blogs&s=blogs&search=blogs&s_blog_id=11

The Tour Begins

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:05:28 -0500

I admit it -- a bit of a time lag in postings. All to do with suddenly having to get liability insurance for one of the theatres (about which more later); finishing up the script (yet again); buying some fabric and finding some sticks for stage ambience; fussing, fussing, fussing; getting ourselves out the door.

Now our first run-out is over. We’ve done three shows -- two in London and one in Kitchener. There have been hazards. The Arts Project in London was in the midst of renovations, so the first night especially was way too cold for comfort; the King Street Theatre in Kitchener is scheduled to close at the end of this month with the result that promised promotion had not been carried out. We are nothing if not flexible, however. We braved the frigidity, moved to a smaller space at King Street and did what needed to be done with relish.

Audience numbers were not great (twelve and twenty in London; thirty three in Kitchener) but we had decided not to focus on this -- rather on the fact that we had set out on an experiment to which we were giving our all. Other results were gratifying. Audiences were very receptive; a theatre critic in London (son of James Reaney, one of Canada’s great playwrights, no less) gave us a lovely blogged review (see next posting); Kitchener afforded good newspaper coverage (see posting after that) and turned up an audience composed mainly of people who had never been to a storytelling event.

On top of all this, we learned a huge amount. We got some good feedback from storytelling colleagues (some of it confirming our own suspicions); we pinpointed a couple of things that weren’t working and are making changes and improvements as needed. We are filled with enthusiasm for this new venture and more than happy to know that on Sunday, we’ll be starting out on a second leg.

Great gratitude to Louise Tamblyn in London and Mary-Eileen Maclear in Baden for giving us room and board; to Susan Getchell in London for helping with postering and for arranging for us to meet her library science students; to Glenna Janzen and Carol Leigh Wehking in Cambridge for doing book sales and offering a critical eye.

Grant Writing Tips

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 08:49:21 -0500

Here we go, as promised some while back.

Making That Crucial Grant Application
Government Agencies – Municipal, Provincial, National; Private Foundations

1. To Bear in Mind

• Decisions are made by juries. Jury members may know nothing about you but what you tell them.
• Each deadline is highly competitive. The jury’s biggest task is often to find reasons to make cuts.
• The jury members can put your application ahead of others only if you provide them with adequate reasons for doing so.

2. Before You Begin to Write

a) The Grants/Program Officer
• Make personal contact if at all possible.
• Ask, listen, try to give a good sense of who you are/what your organization is all about. Find out about likely amounts so you can tailor your plans and application accordingly.
• If you have further questions, contact the grants officer again.
• Know the grants officer is your ally.
• If your application is unsuccessful, phone or email to find out what went wrong.

b) The Criteria
• Read program criteria carefully.
• Accept that it is the task of the jury to ensure that money is spent according to program guidelines and not in other ways, however desirable.
• Work out how and where what you do can fit.
• Be creative about this.
• Know that the program exists for the disbursement of money. Know that it is your job to show why this money should be given to you and that the jury has no responsibility to figure this out.
• Never use a grant application to try to change policy. That’s what lobbying is for and it’s a separate task.
• If your project really doesn’t fit the agency or foundation’s criteria, don’t apply.

c) Planning
• Give yourself plenty of time – 1-2 weeks per application, especially if you’re not used to the process.
• Recognize that what you write has impact beyond the immediate. A careless, inappropriate application may be remembered.
• Recognize that how the application is prepared and set out matters.

3. Making the Application

• Be sure to provide everything that’s asked for, in the manner required.
• Focus on organization.
• Make sure you cover all areas the granting agency has indicated as being of particular importance.
• Try to second guess.
• Write clearly and concisely.
• Write in awareness of previous applications. This particularly applies to organizations where what you are doing now needs to be coherent with previous plans.
• Consider the granting program’s aims and objectives.
• Know that grants are awarded for well-worked out, tightly planned projects rather than good ideas.
• Include hard information wherever possible: facts, figures, number of appearances etc.
• Concentrate on presenting everything -- especially weaknesses -- in the best possible light.
• Recognize that storytelling is often breaking new ground.
• Develop evaluation systems.
• Make sure financial information is clearly presented. Add notes to explain deficits, major changes etc. Organizations should break down information on corporate sponsors so everyone can see who has given what. Budgets must balance – no surpluses, no deficits unless there is a carry over of funds from previous years.
• Remember that a well prepared application gives evidence of your potential for carrying through.
• Keep this year’s application as a template so you can recycle whatever seems appropriate.

4. Support material

• This is becoming increasingly important. Make sure whatever you provide is truly representative of the best that you can do. Poor quality videos, CDs, promotional material will only harm your efforts.

5. Credibility and Good Relations

• Ensure that granting agency requirements are honoured, requested reports provided on time.
• Inform the agency in advance if situations necessitate major changes.
• Know that jury members are selected on the basis of awareness of the art form. Recognize that information about poor performances, failures to show etc. by individuals; poor venues, performer care, promotion on the part of organizations may travel fast.
• Don’t forget to acknowledge the support received on all promotional material, using logos wherever possible. Give verbal acknowledgement as appropriate. This is not just a courtesy. Funding agencies need to have their work known if they are to have their budgets maintained.

If you get the money you’ve asked for, celebrate! It ain’t easy! Getting the money means you’ve done a great job!

Jan Andrews

By Jove!!!

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:11:20 -0500

Finally! FINALLY! We’ve got it. It’s all come together (we think!) The last piece fell into place as we were driving to a meeting -- when we both had to admit the ending we’d thought was perfect actually wasn’t quite right. Tinker, tinker, tinker. How about if....? The solution all had to do with stepping outside the box again -- of course. Those love poems....suppose we....

There’ll be more changes, for sure, as we complete the process of inhabiting it all but that’ll have to do with the delightful spontaneity storytelling offers. We now have the basic structure firm. And...we’re pretty excited about what we’ve done.

Did I say the publicity has started going out? Well it has and the networks seem to be working. We’re getting the odd “saw this in” already. Our fingers are firmly crossed.

The Script! Encore the Script!

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:27:08 -0500

We are swamped, swamped, swamped. We are buried, buried, buried. The script obsesses us. It is driving us crazy. Big break through with the first set -- making it all more vivid, more dramatic -- but now, of course, the second set needs bringing into tune.

The minutes tick by, the days pass. Jennifer goes away next week for school work. We know really when the time comes we’ll be ready but that doesn’t mean we aren’t having nightmares, anxiety dreams. You name it, it’s happening here.

Why didn’t we do all this months ago, you may ask? I can’t. That’s not how it works for me. It only ever all comes together just before the show. And anyway months ago we were doing the other things we had to be doing then. (Was I writing a book? I think so, although now my mind’s now so full I can’t really be sure.)

Have done our first interview -- for the Kitchener Record. Someone out there is paying attention. Someone might actually be planning to buy a ticket. Won’t that be grand? Or will it? Of course it will. We’re dying for an audience. That’s what it’s all about.....we hope! We hope! WE HOPE!!!

Four o’clock in the afternoon and we’ve just had lunch. What on earth are we going to do for supper? We will need supper, won’t we?

Eblast (i.e. advertising) may be coming your way shortly. Hope you’re not as flurried as we are although my mother did always say, “It’s better to work than rust.”

P.S. Thought I’d give the house another go for this week’s image. After all we’re hardly getting out of it, snow or shine.

The Script, the Script, the Script!

Wed, 7 Jan 2009 16:09:24 -0500

OK, so I failed in my mission of blogging once a week but it was Christmas and I did get sick. Main developments have been that on December 23 we talked to our man in Wales, Phil Thomas, Director of the Gwanwyn Festival. This was accomplished via Skype -- a free communications service that gives you audio and video through your computer. (It’s an easy download: www.skype.com. Jennifer and I are actually using it between our respective offices....saves a whole lot of running up and down stairs.) All seems well for our visit to the land of dragons though we’d like a few more bookings confirmed. Between Christmas and New Year’s we picked up our promotional material and it’s gone out to most of the various locations so that’s also done.

These things have been minor compared to our efforts to get the actual text for the show into shape. I know I said we were almost there but that’s how it goes with such things, isn’t it? You think you’re almost there and then you see you’re not and then you add something or take something away and it’s a whole new ball game.

During the holidays, we watched Mamma Mia! and followed that up by checking out the Director’s commentary. Surprise, surprise! The making of the film represented much of what we’re going through. Scenes were removed, scenes were added, scenes were shot from different angles, someone suddenly ad libbed something that proved to be just what was needed. Over and over and over.

Over and over and over for us. And then over again. The big shock came when we did a read through of the first half and found it was way too short. What that did was move us out of the generalities -- which had worked well and were necessary for the one hour version -- into the concretizations that are are proving to be essential for sustaining momentum now.

Getting concrete has meant getting down and dirty. I think before there were things between us we were skating over. We’ve had to give up on that. We’ve had to brace ourselves and really remember what happened; we’ve had to be willing to risk our disparate versions of events. Believe me, the phrase, “What I found hardest...” has come up more than once.

American storyteller, Elizabeth Ellis, talks about “inviting the wolf in” and has a book about it. I feel we’ve been doing inviting wolves in packs. It’s scary but even scarier when we get to where we can’t go any further, when we’re truly not sure we can sort it all out. Mostly then we have to leave it and come back next morning. Fortunately, so far, each time one or other of us has found the key to going on.

Turning life into art is such a complex undertaking. We want to achieve a very definite level of truth but we are so aware what we are creating is something shaped and made. We have to choose what goes in and what doesn’t, what gets said, what has meaning but simply doesn’t fit -- all the while, of course, knowing that if the show we finally come up with has any merit at all, listeners will find their own levels and nuances and recognize aspects beyond our wildest dreams.

Today’s discussion revolved around how we’ve coped with the changes we’ve seen/caused/necessitated in each other. It had to do with moving apart and coming back but not to the place we started from, to somewhere different. At least, I think that’s what we were talking about!

We’re under-pressure because we’re supposed to get a recording to the publicist so she’ll have a better idea of what she’s telling people about. We can’t seem to go any faster, however.

More news on this part later -- inevitably!!!

Happy New Year to you all.

Permission Letter

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 12:01:58 -0500

I’ve had a request to post the permission letter we used as an example. Here we go then, with hopes that it may be useful. I’ve left off the letterhead because it’s too cumbersome but you will need to include your own return address.

September 29, 2008

Jenny Brown Associates
33 Argyle Place
Edinburgh EH9 1JT
U.K.

This letter constitutes an agreement that Andrews-Cayley Enterprises will pay on behalf of Jan Andrews and Jennifer Cayley a fee of $500CAN in return for the right to retell two stories (“Angel Maker” and “Let Us Now Praise Famous Women”) from A Book of Spells by Sara Maitland. The stories will form part of a live show. Permission for retelling is granted for a period of 5 (five) years from the date of signing. It is understood that the re-telling will not be verbatim, but will not stray in material terms from the substance of the original story.

Sara Maitland will be given full credit as the author of the stories at every performance. Credit will also be included in printed programmes in the following form:

Permission for use of stories from A Book of Spells by Sara Maitland is granted by the author.

It is understood and agreed that the entire copyright in the Work shall remain the exclusive property of Sara Maitland and this Agreement shall not be construed as granting any rights or interests other than those which are specifically set forth herein. Rights reserved to the Author include but are not limited to all publication rights; television, radio and film dramatizations; audio rights and all electronic forms of transmission.

Permission is also given to Andrews-Cayley Enterprises for right to record performances for non-commercial purposes.. Any request to broadcast such a recording, in any medium, will be subject to the author's approval on terms to be mutually agreed.

Monies due under this agreement will be paid to Sara Maitland’s agent, Jenny Brown Associates. This company is authorised to collect and receive all monies due under the terms of this Agreement and the receipt of the said agent shall be a good and valid discharge.

Signed:____________________________ Date:
Jan Andrews per Andrews-Cayley Enterprises

___________________________
Jenny Brown Associates Date:

©Please return one copy to Andrews-Cayley Enterprises and keep the other for your records.

Getting to the story, for heaven’s sake.

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 11:17:09 -0500

Last entry was a tad on the optimistic side. There was, of course, still lots of going back and worth and fine tuning to be undertaken -- all of it resulting in these words of wisdom: do not underestimate the necessity for proof reading, do not think you can do all of this yourself! There I was, at the last gasp, believing all was perfect. Off I sent things for a quick once over by the various venues only to find I’d made a number of errors of a fairly egregious nature.

Hope that’s all settled because everything is now at the printers. It’s also up on a website to which I invite you: http://spells.theatreadmin.com.

Despite all of this and despite Christmas looming, we knew we could delay no longer in re-engaging with the script. We have promised Erika, our STAF publicist, a recording for after the holidays so she’ll know what she’s selling. That promise has to be kept.

Here’s the problem: when we first did the show it was an hour long, now we’re going for two forty five minute sets with an intermission. The extra time is to be filled in with a fleshing out of the personal stories which link the literary pieces. What that’s meant is creating a completely new dramatic arc. It’s meant re-examining our relationship to just about everything, throwing out most of what we had before, finding voice for new elements.

It’s scary (not to mention terrifying) but it’s also the fun part -- the part when sparks seem to fly between us, when our beings are fully engaged. Last time we did this we were in a car on our way to St. Louis. This time we at least have a computer to work on.

Usually when I’m creating a piece for storytelling I don’t write it down at all. I mull it and shape it in my head. With this there are two of us.

Here’s what happened. We argued and discussed and argued some more until we thought we had found a basic shape -- for the first half at least. I tried to write that into life. I then emailed it to Jennifer who began re-jigging and bringing her perceptions to bear. We argued and discussed some more. That’s the theme -- arguing and discussing, going at it and at it, verbally and in writing until we find we’re saying things we never dreamed we needed but now know to be essential.

We have to be careful because this is about our life and about times between us that were painful. We seem to be managing well, however. This in itself is a pleasure since it shows how much has been laid to rest and how we can relish using it to make something to put out into the world.

I’m hesitant to give away too much because I’m hoping many of you will be able to come to the show at some point and I don’t want it to be a story you already know. I think though that what we’re moving towards is a better balance, a deeper recognition and evocation of the ways it truly does take two to tango when difficulties arise.

And....we do seem to have the first half almost done and the second well on the way. It helps that the literary material is so splendid, giving us wonderful words and images from which to grow it all. Who can resist the Hansel and Gretel witch dancing “crazy, ancient, unseen,” alone in the forest? the two old women “each with her own broomstick” in their cottage at the end of the road.

Probably -- and with delight -- I’ll have cause to write more about this. Right now, I’m going to tell you the photo I chose to include does represent our house but not as it appears today. The sun is not shining, the snow is falling, the wind is blowing and it’s cold, cold, cold!

Here it is, December 21 -- my chance to wish Happy Holidays to all and sundry, near and far.

Whew!!!!

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:11:26 -0500

You’ve got it! The photo represents some place I’d rather be. This has been the week which had to come but which we would have loved to avoid -- the week which made us wonder why on earth we’d ever thought doing a tour would be a good idea.

It all goes back to the matter of details. With the time for creating copy for posters, postcards and programs at hand we had to face up to the fact that there was a lot of crucial information we didn’t have. There has been much sitting on the phone in an effort to sort it all out. Lists are a big feature of the process (so I regret to announce are scribbled and vaguely intelligible notes).

I think we’re there at last though. We have it all writ down -- date, time and ticket price for each performance; how potential audience members can get advance tickets in all the various locations. All will be on a website set up by STAF -- for which I’ll give you the url next time around. We’ve worked and re-worked poster and postcard budgets and are ready to go to the designer to get everything site specific as required. I’ve even set up a PayPal account -- now that was a challenge!

It would, of course, be so much simpler if all the theatres we’re performing in worked to the same plan. That’s not how it happens though. Mostly they’ve devised systems which suit their own particular communities. Sometimes this means tickets can only be bought at outlets such as book stores, sometimes it’s through libraries, sometimes through the services of another theatre down the road. The same goes for promotion. Sometimes the theatre takes on the distribution of posters, sometimes you have to pay for postering. Some places want you to create your own publicity and even tickets; others do not. One thing we’ve learned: there sure are a lot of dedicated people out there committed to keeping Ontario performance venues alive and well.

NEXT TIME, we’ll develop a questionnaire and get all the information at the time we sign the contract. We’d be happy to talk to anyone who’s interested in what the questionnaire will deal with.

You’ll note that somehow “next time” has crept onto the scene already.

Guess what we had to do wasn’t all that bad, just a bit harassing -- on top of which we did get 30 cms of snow all in one fell swoop.

Money!

Sun, 7 Dec 2008 09:54:12 -0500

Great to hear from folks and know this has its uses! I’ll try to post a message once a week though I can’t promise a regular day.

This message may be a tad short as I am now up to my proverbial in getting dates, location, logos etc. onto the posters so that the Book of Spells publicity campaign can begin. One of the theatres has an earlier deadline than I was anticipating. Truth to tell I was also buried in trying to finish the book I’m working on (Rude Stories for Polite Kids -- great title, eh!) and wasn’t paying enough attention to the timeline so carefully and thoughtfully created by STAF.

Onto the main topic, however. You will no doubt by now have figured out that, without the assistance from the Ontario Arts Council, the tour would have involved putting a fair amount of cash at risk. As it is, we actually have a chance of gaining some income. Without the grant, I think that would have been unlikely (a point I now realize I made some entries back!)

Anyway.... Hence the Canada Council logo at the top. The deadline for the OAC’s Word of Mouth program passed on December 1 and anyway grants were only accessible to Ontario residents. The Canada Council’s Spoken Word and Storytelling Program (a part of the Writing and Publishing Section) is another matter. Deadline for that is April 15 and as far as I know the storytelling aspect is always undersubscribed.

There’s money for the creation of a work but also money for getting it out into the world. You can get more information at www.canadacouncil.ca. The Program Officer is Paul Seesequasis. He can be reached at paul.seesequasis@canadacouncil.ca. -- also 1 800 263 5588. He is extremely helpful and willing to give advice. I would strongly advise contacting him if you have something in mind.

Grant writing is a serious matter. You should give yourself plenty of time, do your best to explain how your project fits the criteria, write clearly and concisely, give evidence of good organization, submit a reasonable budget and know that support material such as demo CDs carries a great deal of weight. The program may be undersubscribed but there’s always competition and jury members need all the ammunition you can give them in deciding to put your proposal high among priorities.

In January, I’m giving a grant writing workshop for Ottawa Storytellers. When that’s done, I’ll post a more complete list of tips (see January 20, 2009). In the meanwhile, a storm is blowing wildly outside and I must turn my attention to those posters.

Permissions

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:44:37 -0500

Since our show contains literary material -- two stories by Sara Maitland and poetry from Michelene Wandor’s Gardens of Eden -- we have had to gain permission for use. The first step in this process is to contact, not the author, but the publisher. In the best case scenario, the publisher will then either deal with you directly or put you in contact with the author or the author’s agent. In the worst, the publisher will tell you the rights are held elsewhere but not be able to help you find them. That’s when the going gets tougher. The University of Texas has a site www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/permissn.htm that may be useful, particularly for North American publications but you may also be in for some detective work.

Let’s assume that all goes well and you make the appropriate connection. You will then have to explain what you want. Whoever you’re dealing with may be somewhat baffled about the storytelling aspect but will probably be willing to oblige. You must be willing to pay. You are dealing with intellectual property and the creator of whatever you want to use certainly deserves reimbursement. (Of course, if you’re offered a freebie, you can leap about in pleasure, spend the money on something else and rejoice!)

If you only want to use the story once, you’ll probably be asked for information about when the performance will take place, the anticipated audience size etc. I would recommend, however, that you try to make provision to be able to include the piece in your on-going repertoire.

The best method of handling this, as far as I can tell, is to sign a contract that allows you to use the piece as often as you want over a particular number of years. We are, for instance, paying $500 for the use of Sara Maitland’s stories for five years. After that, we will have to renegotiate but in the interim we’ll be free. Our fee to Michelene Wandor is less, as the poems play a smaller part in the show, but the arrangement is the same.

To get all this settled, we used a Letter of Agreement based on one drawn up by the agent for another writer whose story I wished to use. I’ll be happy to send a copy to anyone interested.

Included in the agreement will be a statement as to how the writer’s work will be acknowledged in programs, publicity etc. You’re going to have to remember about that when such material is produced.

Details, Details

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:11:33 -0500

Finally, we are getting our last contract so that all our theatre bookings are in place. It’s been a ton of work. We put administrative assistance into our budget when we made our grant application and so have been able to pay the non-profit organization STAF (Small Theatre Administration Facility) in Toronto to do much of the research in terms of potentials venues. STAF’s work is excellent and I would highly recommend them. (You can check them out at www.theatreadmin.com.) Still, it’s been up to us to make all the actual contacts and close all the deals.

Part of our aim in all of this has been to connect with places that are not accustomed to mounting storytelling shows. Most of them have never heard of storytelling in fact! We hope by this not simply to serve our own ends but to open the door for other storytellers. Although we’re happy to go anywhere, the grant is for performances in Ontario.

Our goal was ten shows and we now have them. We’re doing two runs. Here’s the schedule:
February 5-6, The Arts Project, London
February 7, King Street Theatre, Kitchener
February 21-22, Wellington Street Theatre, Kingston
February 24, Gladstone Hotel, Toronto
February 27, Peterborough Arts Umbrella
February 28, Capitol Theatre, Port Hope
March 1, Century Church Theatre, Hillsburgh
March 7, Perth Theatre Project
April 16, Ottawa Storytellers, 4th Stage, National Arts Centre

We’re happy to pass on information about any or all (also to welcome you as audience members if we’re in your neighbourhood).

Theatres range in seating capacity from 100-300. That’s a lot of bums in seats which is, in itself, fairly daunting. The big thing we’ve had to wrestle with is that each booking is different. In some instances we have to pay rental, in others it’s a 50-50 split, in others we’re part of a season. The grant has again been crucial here, of course. Without it, we might well be coming away owing money. Pretty well everywhere we have to take at least some responsibility for publicity. This is another area where STAF comes in. Some places we’re also responsible for tickets and ticket sales. This week or next I’m intending to put together a list of the various requirements. Touring is not for the detailly-challenged it seems!

P.S. The photo of our house is to give you an idea of where it’s all happening. I’m the little dot on the back porch.

Photo Shoot and Promo

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:36:45 -0500

Turned out this was more fun than we’d expected -- less nerve wracking as well! We took along props -- a corn broom and some apples as being suitably evocative. They helped us hugely, giving us something to play with. The best time came when we started adamantly speaking our stories with no thought to what the other was saying. Then, the energy began to flow. What passersby thought is of no concern!

The photos are important. We’re determined to do the promotion as well as we can. We wanted something arresting that really might find its way into a newspaper and convince readers to take note.

Promotion has been on our minds since the beginning when we found out we had to do publicity for the NSN fringe. We went to a company in Ottawa called Industry Images (www.industryimages.com). They produced the postcard I put up yesterday. It’s striking, compelling, surprising and it changed our image of ourselves.

When we found out we’d got the grant the first thing we did was to have the same company do a full promotion package for us. This has served us handsomely, establishing our credentials as a force to be reckoned with in a very immediate way. Package contains description of the piece, bios, complimentary quotes, a summary of logistics and an audio clip on CD. Material can, of course, be sent both electronically and in hard copy.

Printing cost about $180 for 25 packages, $320 for artwork. CD production was on top of that. The thing to note is that all this can now be done much more quickly and therefore more cheaply than heretofore thanks to computerization. There was a minimum run for the packages (25 being the magic number) but with the postcards such numbers don’t matter. You can have as many or as few as you want at the same cost per copy.

Industry Images are great to deal with and they’re national. They may even be in a city near you.

A Book of Spells

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:14:00 -0500

Subtitled A Storytelling Concert in Two Voices, A Book of Spells holds at its core two literary stories of magic realism by English author Sara Maitland. These are linked by the story of how the two of us wrestled ourselves through the throes of a fairly disastrous relationship to a contented (nay, happy!) life together in a house down the end of a road on a lake.

My Maitland story involves the witch in Hansel and Gretel -- still living out there in the forest, eternally defending her right to act according to her own lights. It’s edgy and it’s fierce. I was somewhat troubled to realize that finding it was my favourite gave Jennifer cause for concern (might I say, fear!). Her story is gentler. It starts with a young mother nursing her baby in that period of child rearing where sleep seems an impossible luxury. It carries us, through her memory, to the help she received as a child from two other old women, also witches in their own way. We see how she is strengthened, how she opens the window and flies -- out into the night where there are other women already filling the skies. We return with her to catch her baby’s first smile.

We had each told our stories separately; we’d told them once together. Then we got a place to tell them at the Fringe at the annual NSN (National Storytelling Network) conference in St. Louis in 2006. We drove to the conference from Hamilton. That’s a lot of driving. By the time we arrived, we’d added a whole new element -- the stories of our lives.

We might have stopped there but the Ontario Arts Council introduced touring as an element of its Word of Mouth program for storytelling and spoken word. Following up on the opportunity seemed irresistible. We put in an application. We were awarded a grant for $9000. That was in March. Our aim was to find venues that were non-traditional as far as storytellers are concerned. We’re hoping that through this means we’ll open a few doors.

Hang on then! We’re going on a journey. I can’t promise to write every day but I do aim to tell the whole tale. As time goes by, I fill you in on the back story and let you in on the details of what’s happening in the immediate.

Tomorrow’s a photo shoot! Jan